What up new sexy Coach of the Oilers? You are certainly making a big splash in your early days at camp. Banning doughnuts, making grim faced statements of grim determination at every turn. Working out at 2:15 AM whilst the rest of us are lazily sleeping the day away.

Sick.

END OF SUMMER

Last week your ol' pal Wanye was out in the mean streets of Toronto transacting Nation Business. Finalizing a deal to buy a website to add to the Nation Network, meeting some of our awesome bloggers for the first time, drinking beer by the hectolitre and ogling the babes as they marched past in the clubs.

And during that time it was brought to our attention by several folks covering the Leafs that you are a man of singular focus and determination. "It was a real kick to the beans losing Eakins" they all said in their own way. "This guy is no joke and he is going to remake the character of your team in a real hurry. Leave it to the Leafs to let a guy like that get passed over for the Head Coach job and leave town."

Leave it to the Leafs? Pfft. How about them Edmonton Oilers finally looking outside their ranks and hiring a boss to come in and run the show.

I had the privilege of facing the Marlies and an Eakins coached team 4 times last year and I can tell you they were awesome games. We lost every single one and all of them had a playoff type feel. Not a ton of fights, maybe one or two, but scrums and intensity galore.

They made you work for every inch. I can only assume the Oilers will be a much harder team to play against this year.

YES

Finally someone who is going to come in here and spin the straw of potential into golden results. Your seriousity so far on the job has impressed Oilers fans down to our socks. I can't think of anyone in the last 10 years who has made as many public commitments to winning as you have already and you have exactly two days of training camp under your belt. You are already our 6th favourite Oiler and you won't even set foot on the ice.

I can't over emphasize how important you excelling at your new job is to us Oilers fans all around the world. All we want is the Oilers to finally win again. Maybe it was because so many of us younger fans either didn't live through the glory years or were so young that we took them for granted. Maybe it's because we are living in our beloved sub zero wasteland of a city and our brains are partially frozen year round and we can think of nothing else.

Either way we have been living in the shadow of these great teams from 25 years ago and cheering 24/7 for scraps and wasted potential ever since. The success of your hockey team and you kicking ass at your new job means more to us than it does to most. Millions of us are squarely in your corner as you make these boys into men.

Stack the dead bodies of non performing Oilers three across and use them as a bridge to ford the river and reach VictoryLand on the other side. Run roughshod over everyone who suggests that mediocrity and borderline competing is good enough as they collect millions in the process. Hell strap on the skates, wear Ben Eager's face as a mask and block shots on the PK if you feel it would help.

We have a sneaking suspicion you are going to do whatever it takes.

"I firmly believe you’ve got to come in with your family with the attitude that this is our community and we’re never leaving. That’s the only way you can do it. I want everybody to know I’m all in.” - You, here.

Oh man. Thank you for coming here and signing on for the next four years of your life to do the job that we all want done so badly. You could have doubtlessly gone anywhere you wanted. Thank you for picking Edmonton and going all in.

Now for heaven's sakes please get these here Oilers into the playoffs.

Love,

Wanye

Blog so hard motherf**ckers try and find me.
Tweet me @wanyegretz provided it is about Jordan Eberle or babes. Find me on instagram for photos of donairs.

Four year contract until MacT looses it, and while talking to himself, realised HE was actually the coach who most agreed with his goals. So he decides to fire Eakins a week after giving him the 'kiss of death' endorsement, even though we made the play-offs!

Also, props for running in to Ebs while wearing a Squeeeeeeeeeee t-shirt. That's almost as embarrassing as the time I ran in to my high-school crush during rugby rookie orientation while I was wearing a tu-tu with her name sharpied across the bum. Never smooched her, btw.

Hmmmmmm Seriosity? I was going to challange the use of this word until I googled it. Turns out there is quite a fight going on as to its legitimacy. But who cares its in the urban dictionary so its officially official.

You say, "I can't think of anyone in the last 10 years who has made as many public commitments to winning as you have already and you have exactly two days of training camp under your belt."

But you forget: "And lastly, I’ll say that there’s one other guy in hockey today that is still working in the game that has won more Stanley Cups than me. So I think I know a little bit about winning, if there’s ever a concern."

Judging the book only by its cover - and at this point that is really all we have - Mr. Eakins seems to have the right attitude and talks a great game. Miles better than Deepak Krueger.

There is however one nagging issue and it shows even on Mr. Eakins face and physique:

You can over-train.

Hockey, much like baseball, is a marathon - not a sprint. Burn-out - not just physically, but mentally is an issue. Coaches like Tortorella have been accused of wearing their teams out by playing far too intense a style of hockey and in off ice training in a season that can go north of 100 games in nine months (and this is an olympic year meaning the second half is more condensed than normal).

Getting your players to a level of fitness where the body fat is so low they look like auschwitz internees will be a big mistake. Unlike Mr. Eakins, they have to play a game against adversaries as well as hit the bike etc.

In baseball there is a bit of a training revolution beginning: some players only do sprint and very brief high energy reps - as there is no play in baseball that lasts more than five seconds.

I wonder if similar philosophies are being adopted in hockey. And i wonder if Mr. Eakins is aware of them and/or is amenable to changing his attitudes...

You say, "I can't think of anyone in the last 10 years who has made as many public commitments to winning as you have already and you have exactly two days of training camp under your belt."

But you forget: "And lastly, I’ll say that there’s one other guy in hockey today that is still working in the game that has won more Stanley Cups than me. So I think I know a little bit about winning, if there’s ever a concern."

How quickly we forget, eh?

I would never diss Kevin Lowe. Regardless of the fact that his success as a player standing next to his success as a Coach/GM looks like Zdeno Chara standing next to Mini Me.

Never. He is legit one of my heroes regardless without any sarcasm whatsoever.

With a power play and penalty kill near the top of the league, I wonder which areas of the Oilers game Eakins will be credited with improving most? Does anyone think, like Krueger, there will be elements that might actually worsen?

I hope he improves on our shots for and against, as well as our puck possession.

With a power play and penalty kill near the top of the league, I wonder which areas of the Oilers game Eakins will be credited with improving most? Does anyone think, like Krueger, there will be elements that might actually worsen?

I hope he improves on our shots for and against, as well as our puck possession.

Stone Cold Eakins has the attention of many Oiler fans and by what has been bussing around, so do the players. This could be a very interesting year and I can hardly wait for it to kick into high gear.